I can't promise often or interesting updates, but I'll ramble about books for you.

spies and cabaret

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The trick to getting a lot of reading done is this: work from home and have no dependents or social life. Such is how I read all 400 pages of Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly in less than twenty-four hours. I read in the morning. I read on my lunch break. I pretty much sat on my couch all evening and then my bed all night reading. And, at 12:01 AM, I finished.

Let me be honest: if I weren’t coming off a streak of uninteresting books, I likely would have spaced this out more. Taken a few more days with it. Under different circumstances, this isn’t a book that would grab me by my throat and straight-up compel me to keep reading in a mad frenzy. But due to the sheer novelty of finally enjoying a book again, I didn’t want it to stop. So, well, I didn’t.

This is a really solid book, though. Strong writing, even pacing, and interesting premise of spies and fascism and cabarets and two men in love who quite simply are terrible at communicating with each other until it’s too damn late. All things I don’t hate. Astride is delightful and knows his worth and what he can do with his face and his body (and my god HIS HAIR) and his mind, and sure he may be a smuggler in love with a government spy but he’s damn well still going to do what he pleases. And Cryil, quiet Cyril, who’s had some tough breaks and is finally settling in with his new lot in life and his not-spoken-of love of Astride until things get shaken up again and he’s desperately trying to stay afloat and save his skin and Astride’s, all on his own, of course. These two idiots. I’m into them.

The ending of this book aches, but it felt right. Kind of a spoiler, here, but obviously they couldn’t have a happy ending. They’re both too used to hiding things and working around the other without revealing their plans and secrets. But, I think this is the first time in recent memory that I’m not mad at a standalone book turning into a series. Because I want these two fools to find each other in their mad world. I want them to carve out some space of quiet happiness for themselves, like they had for a while in Astride’s flat. Only this time, they’ll only tell each other small lies.

I do want to touch briefly on the women characters, of which there are some! Just mostly in side roles, although starting with Part Two Cordelia gets a lot more to do, thankfully. She’s smart, ambitious, and willing to blow shit up when necessary. And while she operates without all the information (“for her own safety” according to Cyril and Astride, OFC), she doesn’t relinquish her agency and when people around her start getting hurt, she doesn’t back down. I hope we see her in the next book!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go be sad about this for some time.